POW Featured in Documentary Labels Kerry as 'Traitor'
by Chad Groening
September 17, 2004
(AgapePress) - A former Air Force pilot who spent almost eight years in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp says John Kerry's anti-war activities helped extend the amount of time he was incarcerated by the Communists -- and encouraged the Communist regime to prolong the war.
Smitty Harris
(Compliments of StolenHonor.com)
Smitty Harris, who now resides in Tupelo, Mississippi, is one of 17 former POWs who was interviewed for Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, a video that investigates how John Kerry's actions during the Vietnam War impacted the treatment of American soldiers and POWs. Their combined time spent in prison during the war amounts to more than 109 years. Harris, who was a POW from April 1965 to February 1973, says he has come forward to tell his story now because he does not think the Massachusetts senator should be America's next Commander-in-Chief.
The Democratic presidential hopeful, says Harris, "helped extend my incarceration in North Vietnam" through his well-documented anti-war activities made after returning stateside. "I would label him, personally, as a traitor," the former POW adds.
Kerry has made his service in Vietnam the leitmotif of his presidential campaign -- to which Harris responds: "People say, 'Well, he served in Vietnam, honorably, got all those medals.' Well, that's questionable -- but let's take it on face value that he did. So did Benedict Arnold, the great general."
And like his comrades who appear in Stolen Honor, Harris says Kerry made things very difficult for Americans staying at "The Hanoi Hilton."
"[Kerry] was still in the inactive reserve when he was making those libelous statements to Congress in April of 1971. That's enough for a court martial right then and there,." Harris shares. "And his dealing with the enemy, Madame Vinh in Paris, while we were still at war and while he was still a member of the armed forces, was also traitorous."
It is that testimony before Congress that Harris claims gave the enemy the confidence that they could ultimately win the war. "They had a long history of just wearing out any foreign forces, but they were just given more encouragement by people like John Kerry," he says.
Harris credits Kerry with having more impact on prolonging the war -- and giving aid to the enemy -- than even "Hanoi Jane" Fonda and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. He says his captors "virtually told" the prisoners the North Vietnamese could not match the military might of the U.S., but that "they would win the war because they would win it in the streets of the United States."
"He had probably more impact than anyone else that I can imagine ...on prolonging the war and giving encouragement to our communist enemies to continue their struggle," Harris says.
The 45-minute documentary Stolen Honor, released on Thursday, features a group of highly decorated veterans, two of whom are Medal of Honor recipients. It was produced by Carlton Sherwood, himself a decorated Vietnam veteran as well as a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
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